Chapter 82

“Look, I think she’s waking up.”

“Shhh!”

My brain slowly comes back online, with a few false starts as I go in and out of darkness.

My eyes are closed. I smell grass and mud. The side of my face feels damp. It’s pressed up against something hard. I hear the sound of water and a bird chirping.

I open my eyes. The world is still spinning. I try to sit up, but I can’t. My hands and feet are tied.

“Just stay there,” a voice says.

Maybe my emotions are muted, but the sound of that voice still puts a knot in my stomach.

Cherry. She’s going to kill me.

I inhale sharply. It’s one thing to die. It’s another to know that this bitch won. I struggle against Duct tape I’m tied up with.

“Cut that out,” a male voice says.

“Let me up,” I say. “I want to see you both.”

“Let’s just sit her up,” the man says, obviously to Cherry. “If you promise to sit there and don’t move.”

“Fine,” says Cherry.

He lifts me up so that I’m in a sitting position. I can see where we are now - in an enclosed, wooded area near the bridge. We’re at the river, not far from where Ethan died.

Cherry crosses her arms and looks down at me. “I’m sorry it has to come to this,” she says, not looking sorry at all. She spits on me.

“What the hell,” the man says, teeth gritted. “Goddamn it.”

The saliva falls on the front of my neck and runs down into the center of my clavicle where it stays.

The man starts rustling through his backpack.

“I’m worth a lot to you, if you have to go through all this trouble,” I say. “Actually, I’m worth a lot to Ansel if -“

Cherry pulls her leg back to kick me.

“Stop it!” The man grabs her arm. “You’ll ruin things. You don’t want her all bruised up. And now you’ve got your DNA all over her.” His eyes are furious.

Cherry blushes. “Oh, I forgot.”

I never thought I’d be happy to be spat on, but here I am.

“She’s just so revolting,” Cherry says.

The man opens up an alcohol swab and starts to try cleaning me off. “You’d better hope this works,” he says, looking up at Cherry.

“Where’s Elizabeth,” I ask.

“She did her job,” Cherry says.

“After you forced her?”

“Enough,” the man says, looking at Cherry. “You’re wasting time.”

“Okay, alright,” Cherry says. She sits down on the ground in front of me. “I brought you here, so you can kill yourself -“

“Um, no.”

“You’re going to do it,” she says.

“You’re a crazy, fucking bitch.”

Cherry’s eyes flash with anger. She leans in close. “How dare you. I should -“

“Easy, Cherry,” the man warns.

“Listen here,” Cherry says, snarling. “You are going to jump off of that bridge. Everyone will think you committed suicide to be with your fiancé.”

“Ansel won’t,” I say.

I watch as Cherry’s face weeble-wobbles from her face to her wolf’s, as she struggles to control herself.

“He will,” she says. “Because you’re going to write him a note.”

“You’re really fucking stupid,” I say. “Why would I do any of this?”

“Two reasons,” Cherry says. “We’ve got Elizabeth, that’s the first.”

“What,” I say, appalled.

“She’s in the trunk of my car,” the man says above us, smiling.

“Why don’t you just kill me and leave her out of this?”

“I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts, bitch,” Cherry says. “He did enough to hide his trail to that reporter, and no one will connect the dots, so she’s easy enough to get rid of.”

“There’s no way you’re not going to kill her. Why are you using her as bait? She’s too much of a risk to keep around.”

“We’ve already gag-spelled her,” Cherry says, smiling. “She’ll never be able to talk.”

“How the hell did you do that?” It’s not like that’s an easy thing to conjure. I can only think of one person with enough power to do that.

“Connections,” the man says. “Can we cut to it yet?”

“Not yet,” I say. “I have more questions. Like, why would you think I’d care about someone who tricked me and drugged me?” I decide to bluff. “Kill her. I don’t care. That’s one more thing you can’t hold over me.”

“Call it some extra weight to seal the deal,” the man says. “I went to a lot of trouble to get that reporter. Might as well make it worth my while.”

“We talked about this,” Cherry says. “It would have been dangerous to be seen walking into that house, and then your DNA would have been all over things.”

“I could have snuck in, undetected, and worn gloves and a suit and shit,” the man says.

I suppress a shiver at the thought.

“Oh, shut up, Blake,” Cherry says. She looks back at me. “And if you don’t care, fine. Blake, go take care of her,” she says, without breaking eye contact from me.

Blake pulls himself up straight. “Okay -“

“Wait,” I say.

Cherry’s lips curl into a smile.

“I - uh, I want to hear the second reason.”

Cherry’s face goes serious. “Because you love Ansel,” she says.